Plymouth University in the United Kingdom will provide 30,000 e-textbooks to students institution-wide, school officials announced.

The institution collaborated with VITAL Source Technologies, the digital textbook arm of Ingram Content Group, for this innovative digital book project, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the higher education sector. The program launched this month.

"This initiative is driven by a determination to ensure that no student is disadvantaged in terms of learning," Dr. Phil Gee, the Plymouth eBooks project manager, said in a statement. "Providing personal electronic copies of core texts significantly cuts the cost of university, and gives all an equal opportunity to succeed. We are immensely proud that Plymouth is pioneering this very practical way of supporting students, and it delivers on our strategy to enrich what we do through appropriate use of digital technology."

The university's e-textbook program has already provided more than 30,000 e-textbooks to students. Vital Source are providing e-textbooks from more than 16 publishers to students studying science and technology, business, arts and humanities, medicine and health and human sciences.

Widespread access to required learning materials will allow the University to transform the educational process and to make full use of the suite of learning tools built into the VitalSource Bookshelf platform.

Students will access the textbooks directly through Plymouth University's Digital Learning Environment, and almost half of the materials will be available in reflowable XML and EPUB formats to provide rich, robust interactive content.

"Vital Source was founded on the principal of expanding access to higher education by offering students significant savings on their required course materials, and as the cost of earning a degree continues to rise, it is essential that students have digital options," William Chesser, vice president of Business Development and Global Markets at Vital Source Technologies, Inc., said in a statement. "We are proud to work with Plymouth University to facilitate the most significant digital implementation ever undertaken in the [United Kingdom] and we are confident that students and the University will benefit from the convenience and cost-savings of digital content."

The textbooks can be used online or they can be downloaded onto the students' preferred devices including smartphones and tablets.